Abstract [en]

Background: The Emergency department is a part of the hospital where patients comes with a critical condition and unexpected ilness for a first judgment. The healthcare provided is intense and demanding of the nurses.

Aim: The aim of the study was to describe the nurses experiences of working in the emergency department. Our purpose is also to describe the study participants in the selected studies.

Methods: The present literature review has a decpriptive design. PubMed was used and 15 articles were included, eight had a qualitative approach and seven had a quantitative. The limits that were used in the data collection was years, language and access for the university of Gävle. The data were analysed by color-coding and reading and the result is presented by four themes.

Main Results: It was revealed the emergency department nurses were affected by the experience of various forms of stress. The patient population is constantly increasing, which concerned the nurses, which in turn led to increased workload. The need of education and more resources of nurses is big, and the work enviroment is demanding with a high patient flow, violence and hectic days. In the selected articles there was in total 1492 participants.

Conclusion: The experience of stress affected the nurses emotionally and physically, which also affected the social life. The emergency department is unorganized with a high patientflow that affects the work enviroment and the patient safety. The high patient flow contributed also to a long waiting time which increased the risk of violence. More resources of nurses and education is needed